You Decide
by Dueling Sabres
Summary: I have not come up with anything yet. If you can think of something, let me know. Thanks


The red-cloaked mage confidently strode down the uneven, poorly lit cave. Water dripped a marching beat from the high ceiling onto the tip of his well pressed, rune emblazoned hat. His polished boots clicked proudly off the limestone floor, radiating his thoughts, "I am unbeatable". He continued through twisting corridors, up steep inclines and down slick slopes. With his dark polished oaken staff he brushed thick webs from before him, without slowing.  
  
Clicking, swishing, barking and impish giggling touched his ears, coming from one of the seven dark, ominous gaping tunnels before him. Planting his staff before him, the mage lazily rested his spindly arms across it, yawning, waiting. "Come on you pathetic Beholder fodder, come meet your end." he thought. He chuckled to himself and straightened his robe as the scurrying of little feet came closer and closer. A small impish dog-like Kobold emerged from one of the dark openings, jaws snapping. Needle-like claws scrapping the rock floor leaving small grooves.  
  
"Is this all you've got?" he screamed at the Kobold and the darkness. The Kobold, taken aback by this explosion, arched its back and the matted fur stood on end like a cantankerous hunting cat. With eyes gleaming, the Kobold sprang forward at his face. Easily sidestepping the creature, the mage swung his staff down on the Kobold's back as it flew past, snapping it in half. He gave the Kobold a final kick for good measure and readied himself to continue when five more Kobolds emerged from the tunnels.  
  
"Now this is better, at least a little challenge, nothing that the amazing Gershon Longfingers of just south of Waterdeep can't handle." he bragged. Gershon had battled with the likes of Kobolds many times in the past.  
  
He was once hired by a squat cobbler to clean out a small infestation of Kobold and beetles from his cellars in the port city of Baldur's Gate. On another occasion, he was drugged and then captured by three Kobold only to escape and embellish his story to bards and drunks in cheap Watardavian taverns:  
  
"There I was, asleep in my tavern room, when all of a sudden two giant  
umber hulks, they must have been eight feet tall, broke my door down."  
"Oh, sweed Mystra, wuddid you do?" one long-bearded drunk sloppily asked.  
"Well, I jumped out of bed with my cat-like reflexes and quickly  
disposed of the first hulk with a blast of lightning. A third hulk  
appeared behind me once his invisibility spell wore off. I spun on my  
heel and knocked off his right leg with a swipe of my staff. The hulk  
went down, but the remaining hulk behind me smashed me over the head,  
cracking three of my vertebrae."  
"Oh! Sweet Ao!" the same drunk exclaimed, "Diddy kill you?" the drunk  
stupidly asked as he caressed Gershon's forearm. Gershon pulled his  
arm away forcefully, knocking the drunk out of his chair, out cold.  
  
Cockiness flew and was replaced with nervousness as score upon score of Kobold crawled out of every crack and crevice, surrounding him. They spread like a terrible plague, unstoppable.  
  
"Hah, you cannot defeat the great Gershon, you hairy pigs, come and meet your doom." he exclaimed with little or no heart. He swung his staff at them futilely and one ripped it out of his weak grasp. Suddenly, all of the Kobolds looked up at Gershon, backed up, and then scurried away into their holes terrified.  
  
"I new it, I new it. You cannot stand before the power of the mighty Gershon Longfingers. Go before your meager species becomes extinct at the hands of Gershon Long..." he froze as a strong slender hand grasped the back of his neck.  
  
************************************************************************  
  
"Ok, ok, it's time to go, I think you've had enough to drink."  
  
"Awe, I've just gotten started. I couldn't have had more than two ales, and maybe one shot, no more."  
  
"You actually had seven ales, three mugs of mead, four shots and a glass of wine, and it was a bad year at that. You should call yourself a dwarf rather than an elf."  
  
"Don't disgrace me like that Vayndil. You know as well as I that an elf of my ability has an ability to be something that someone like yourself or anyone of some other stature with the ability or not to be of someone like myself when it comes to drinking..." He rambled off into a drunken stupor.  
  
"Come on, the doors over here." Vayndil pointed towards the door, walking towards it.  
  
I'm coming, I'm coming. Treating me like I don't have any common sense. My senses can rival anyone in the realms." He got up from the bar, and knocked a row of seated drunks over like dominoes. Walking a zigzag line after Vayndil, something off to the right of the door caught the attention of his blurry eyes. A large wooden table piled high with food and drink, did little to dampen the beauty of the five young elven maidens seated around it. His drunken swagger veered toward the table until he was leaning on it, attempting a seductive persona.  
  
"I hope you beautiful ladies don't mind if I sit down." Before he received an answer, he sat down next to the nearest maiden and put his arm around her.  
  
But Vayndil saw differently without a drink dulled head. His friend did not sit at a table with five beautiful maidens, but rather five fat, dirty, dumbfounded sailors.  
  
"You all are very beautiful, your beauty bewitches me to where my eyes may be deceived. I pray only that this is not a dream." Looking to the maiden that his arm was around, he caressed her hair. "Your hair is like pure silk, soft as your skin." He caressed her cheek. "I have a room at a nearby inn if you are lonely. I would be honored with your presence. What say you fair maiden?"  
  
"If you treasure your arm, you'll flee!" the smell of seawater and cheap pipe weed assaulted him.  
  
"Whoa! We can work on that. Heeeeyyy!?" Vayndil grabbed him by the collar and violently pulled him to the door.  
  
"It's time to go! Gods Jaegan, one of these days you're going to say something to the wrong person!" Vayndil exclaimed as he dragged Jaegan out the door.  
  
"What? I had everything under control. Trust me, a couple more minutes and you would be thanking me. Trust me, I have excellent taste, they were butter in my hands."  
  
Vayndil knew better than to trust anything that Jaegan said. Growing up together in Evermeet, Vayndil knew that Jaegan would be a problem. The elves had no problems with alcohol; they only drank the finest wines. Jaegan enjoyed wine, but enjoyed every other spirit he could get his hands on even more. It all began when he was sent to Waterdeep with Vayndil to get him out of trouble in Evermeet. He accidentally wandered into a pub called the Golden Mug, a meeting place that the dwarven community frequented. Everyone in Waterdeep knew this, accept Jaegan. By the time Vayndil tracked him down, Jaegan was hooked on every form of alcohol, and on his way to a drunken fight with ten angry dwarves. From then on, Vayndil felt more like guardian than a best friend.  
  
"So, where are we going?" Jaegan asked one of the posts holding up the large, golden mug above the pub door.  
  
"I'm over here." Vayndil said as he began walking down the quickly emptying street.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"We are going to find an inn for the night so that you can get some common sense. I'm not going to walk around here with you flirting with everything you see, or worse. We have a job to do here, and we can't visit every pub, bar, and tavern on the way."  
  
"What are you talking about, it's been a long time since we've been to one!"  
  
Vayndil turned away and walked into the darkness of the Baldur's Gate night, "Your hopeless!" 


End file.
